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I’m cursed, like all the Medvilles before me, those ancestors Harlan told me about, the ones who gave up everything in search of the compass. His parents, who he murdered so he could be the sole beneficiary when he found it.
But I’m nothing like them. I didn’t let greed get the better of me.
Didn’t you?
I ignore the tiny voice in my head. It’s my conscience, and now’s not the time to acknowledge the lengths I’ve gone to.
A ghostly face appears in the window set into the door and I lose my footing, almost submerging. Water sloshes over my chin, onto my lips, and the taste of salt makes me gag.
“Ready to tell the truth?” Spencer asks, his face a stony mask. But I glimpse a flicker of regret in his eyes and I need to play on that sympathy.
“Spencer, please. You, me, and Lucy can be a family.” My teeth are chattering, but I’m immune to the cold now. My entire body is frozen and hypothermia will set in if he leaves me here any longer.
I’ll do anything to escape.
Including confess to a murder I didn’t commit if it comes to that.
“Lucy doesn’t need family like you.” His lips peel back in a grin that borders on maniacal. “I gave her the compass.”
The cold must’ve affected my brain because I could swear he just admitted to giving Lucy the compass I’ve been searching for all these years.
“What?”
“You heard me. Lucy now has your precious compass.” He taps his chest. “I found it ten years ago.”
Shocked, I press my face against the glass separating us. “You know what that compass means to me, what it means for Arcania. Do you really hate me that much you’d let me continue fruitlessly searching all these years?”
Sadness darkens his eyes. “I don’t hate you, Cora. But your obsession has made you immune to logic, and I held onto the compass on the off-chance Ava or her child returned here one day.”
My mind’s a jumble as I try to understand what this means. All these years, I thought that possessing the compass would appease the Norse gods. I allowed my superstition to rule everything, like Harlan once had.
But if Spencer’s telling the truth, finding the compass has done nothing. This house is still oppressive. It still has a presence. It still haunts me.
“I can’t believe you let me waste my time searching for it all these years.”
His upper lip curls in a sneer. “I didn’t ‘let’ you do anything, Cora. You’ve been blinded by greed.”
I open my mouth to refute his accusation, but before I can speak, a surge of salty water fills it. Spluttering and panicked, I stand on tiptoes, belatedly realizing that while we’ve been talking the tide has risen further and is halfway between my chin and mouth.
I’m out of time.
“You need to let me out now, Spencer.”
I tilt my head back to keep the water off my face because I know if I take another mouthful, I’ll lose it completely and will drown before he opens the door.
“Not until you tell me—”
“Fine. I killed our daughter. I pushed her in front of that bus because I knew she was lost to me and I had another heir in Lucy. Is that what you want to hear?”
Our eyes lock and his fill with tears.
“You are the devil,” he mutters, but he reaches for the door handle and turns it to the left to unlock it.
I weep in relief, but it’s premature.
There’s no clunk as the bolts slide into place.
Instead, the wheel spins.
